Pure Dragon IMO. Gives you a fire resistance and powers up Glaive Rush to insane levels
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VGC 2023 Metagame Discussion: Regulation C
- Thread starter zee
- Start date
Pure Dragon IMO. Gives you a fire resistance and powers up Glaive Rush to insane levels
a lot of people go unaware too to help win the mirror matchup
Jamie Boyt made a video suggesting tera Electric to pair Tera Blast with a STAB Ice-type attack, because Ice and Electric have perfect neutral coverage I'm pretty sure.
Other than that I've seen tera Fire, probably because you can take a fire type attack well and get a Thermal Exchange boost, while also converting your previous fairy and steel weaknesses to resistances.
I saw the other commenter recommend tera Dragon, I definitely have to agree that's a great option for the reasons they stated.
Good luck with building, I really like this mon and hope you do well with it!
Hey! I just started S/V, and I cant beat gholdengo. What are some counters?
It really doesn’t like Fire types in general. Offensive Arcananie does well, Volcarona can set up on it and Torkoal can take an unboosted shadow ball and ohko back with Heat Wave.
Hydreigon is also a good answer - it's faster, can tera-steel to withstand Make it Rain more easily, and has STAB Dark Pulse if Gholdengo hasn't tera'd.
murkrow+gholdengo+hydreigon is quickly becoming a synergistic offensive core that's easy to build around
a lot of teams add garchomp or replace one of the two special attackers with it. By giving chomp clear amulet your entire team is effectively immune to intimidate. Because of this, despite the high concentration of intimidate users, I'm not seeing many in team previews, and even fewer are actual brings
I also don't see this changing any time soon since clear amulet has plenty of upside beyond just stopping intimidate. Meta defining held item lol
a lot of teams add garchomp or replace one of the two special attackers with it. By giving chomp clear amulet your entire team is effectively immune to intimidate. Because of this, despite the high concentration of intimidate users, I'm not seeing many in team previews, and even fewer are actual brings
I also don't see this changing any time soon since clear amulet has plenty of upside beyond just stopping intimidate. Meta defining held item lol
From what I have seen, water is strong because of the fire type mons popular right now (and lack of grass), however flying is also strong for any offense grass types like banded meowascarda or others. Flying also resists fighting which is good, and I have't seen too many electric attacks to make me worry about running it! Just testing will probably be your best bet, but I think those two typings are both strong!
Unaware is a lot more popular into mirror match-ups because Dondozo is such a strong mon right now, mirror herb is too situational but it comes down to if you can deal with mirror match-up. I personally believe unaware is a lot better. For items, Clear Amulet is good but I have seen people run leftovers as well just to get that bonus health regen per roudn.
normally with rain teams pelipper simply enables a swift swim user to clear through non-resists but the swift swimmers this dex frankly feel lacking in multiple ways
somewhat ironically, pelipper itself feels really good. Hurricane cleans up most grass types reasonably well and with sash it's really easy to match a prankster tailwind, especially with your swift swim user potentially outspeeding the other threat and nabbing a ko
I still think there's a lot of potential for pelipper even without swift swim just as a way to help answer torkoal or armarouge, or paired simply with palafin to turn jet punch into a nasty nuke
somewhat ironically, pelipper itself feels really good. Hurricane cleans up most grass types reasonably well and with sash it's really easy to match a prankster tailwind, especially with your swift swim user potentially outspeeding the other threat and nabbing a ko
I still think there's a lot of potential for pelipper even without swift swim just as a way to help answer torkoal or armarouge, or paired simply with palafin to turn jet punch into a nasty nuke
I agree about Pelipper being strong. It also gets access to Wide Guard, and this format has a lot of spread moves. Tera Ground as an option to block Electric OHKOs opens up the opportunity to use Damp Rock or Eject Button over Focus Sash.
The removal of a consistent rain-boosted STAB in Scald really hurts rain teams. Tera Grass and Water are frequently used for more than just rain, leaving rain teams handled innately without second thought (especially in the case of Grass Armarouge, which Indeedee can Follow Me a Hurricane away from). The increased usage of priority attacks can put Swift Swimmers in a cramped spot against bulky offense teams with Dragonite / Arcanine / Sylveon / Kingambit / Meowscarada. Murkrow having Taunt, Tailwind, Icy Wind, and Quash really hampers Pelipper's effectiveness as well.
With all of these things considered, I have been back and forth on how effective rain may be this season.
this is exactly how it feels
so many teams are opting into tera grass or water for completely separate reasons that inherently makes the rain matchup better, and the opposing weather teams don't feel quite as reliant on it actually being up as rain does
the prevalence of grass tera specifically might be what is making pelipper feel so good right now- its base stats aren't the greatest but it has 100% accurate hurricane in a meta where most special flying types rely on air slash
the water type(s) paired with pelipper are struggling with meowscarada who outspeeds all but barraskewda under tailwind
open team sheets will help with the murkrow problem, I think, since knowing they don't have quash is a huge win for the rain sweeper. Taunt is still problematic but I've been able to throw down with tons of mons in tailwind just because of floatzel's absurd speed stat+palafin's strong priority
I'm definitely too scared to try a solo pelipper team, but maybe someday someone better than me will try it
probably Poison
I'm using a Tailwind team to just hit everything with spread damage, but I am struggling with Trick Room and Dondozo teams. I don't seem to get much use out of Dragapult, but don't know what to replace it with.
Kilowattrel (M) @ Focus Sash
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Ability: Competitive
Tera Type: Electric
Level: 50
Timid Nature
- Discharge
- Air Slash
- Tailwind
- Protect
Garchomp (M) @ Clear Amulet
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Ability: Rough Skin
Tera Type: Ground
Level: 50
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Protect
Sylveon (M) @ Throat Spray
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 120 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 132 Spe
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Fire
Level: 50
Modest Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Tera Blast
- Baby-Doll Eyes
- Protect
Dragapult (M) @ Dragon Fang
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Dragon
Level: 60
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Darts
- Dragon Dance
- Phantom Force
- Protect
Skeledirge (M) @ Charcoal
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 224 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 28 Spe
Ability: Blaze
Tera Type: Fire
Level: 50
Modest Nature
- Torch Song
- Shadow Ball
- Heat Wave
- Protect
Gholdengo @ Choice Specs
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Water
Level: 56
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Make It Rain
- Tera Blast
- Thunderbolt
Kilowattrel (M) @ Focus Sash
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Ability: Competitive
Tera Type: Electric
Level: 50
Timid Nature
- Discharge
- Air Slash
- Tailwind
- Protect
Garchomp (M) @ Clear Amulet
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Ability: Rough Skin
Tera Type: Ground
Level: 50
Jolly Nature
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
- Rock Slide
- Protect
Sylveon (M) @ Throat Spray
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 120 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 132 Spe
Ability: Pixilate
Tera Type: Fire
Level: 50
Modest Nature
- Hyper Voice
- Tera Blast
- Baby-Doll Eyes
- Protect
Dragapult (M) @ Dragon Fang
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Ability: Infiltrator
Tera Type: Dragon
Level: 60
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Darts
- Dragon Dance
- Phantom Force
- Protect
Skeledirge (M) @ Charcoal
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 224 HP / 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 28 Spe
Ability: Blaze
Tera Type: Fire
Level: 50
Modest Nature
- Torch Song
- Shadow Ball
- Heat Wave
- Protect
Gholdengo @ Choice Specs
IVs: 0 Atk
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Ability: Good as Gold
Tera Type: Water
Level: 56
Timid Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Make It Rain
- Tera Blast
- Thunderbolt
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NO! Tera Poison is extremely niche, with pretty much the only relevant user being Hydreigon. For Baxcalibur you want to either go pure Dragon for nuclear Glaive Rush and a Fire resistance, Fire for anti Steel coverage and again a Fire resistance, or Electric for BoltBeam coverage.
milkmimo I would suggest dropping Deagapult and replacing it with Murkrow. Gives your team speed control with Tailwind, and you can even use Haze / Perish Song to beat Dondozo
I have Tailwind on Kilowattrel, but it's Trick Room teams that are a bit of an issue, not other Tailwind teams.
Sorry, you didn't include a Kilowatrel in your original post. You could try Amoongus, gives you some redirection and passive healing. It can Spore Dondozo or remove its boosts with Clear Smog, though Sub Steel Dondozo can beat Amoongus. Base 30 Speed also means it loves Trick Room, so your opponent will be hesitant to set it up lest you start sleeping their team.
I must have forgotten to paste it in, I'll swap out Dragapult for Amoonguss and see how much use it gets. I am not worried about Steel Dondozo since then I can just Spore it.
you can also try making your sylveon min speed, it's got a pretty good speed tier to function under trick room. It plus amoonguss can really put in work in that matchup
you can try to make use of telepathy by bringing a boomburst or earthquake mon
something like rabsca+toxtricity+murkrow+garchomp already has a lot of synergy and works both in and out of TR
rabsca itself probably appreciates psychic stab but I don't know if bug stab is worth bringing
The best annihilape counter is hoping they're scarf gambit :p
It takes a lot of firepower to threaten annihilape, but I've been doing okay just by threatening enough damage to kill it neutrally, like baxcalibur glaive rush or floatzel wave crash, before bulk up
And then picking it off with priority if it didn't quite die
Have you tried out tera grass on your Skeledirge? It completely walls Dondozo if you go Unaware with the ability. It also walls Tera Ground Garchomp that runs around as well. You'd still have to look out for Tera Fire/Poison Hydreigon if they run Terablast but the SpDef stat that Skeledirge has should make it bulky enough to live. Torcoal will also be your nemesis with this set and if you are struggling against trick room, this will continue to be an issue. You can also run Slackoff instead of Heatwave to live a little longer and boost up with Torch Song.
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